After being functional for almost 100 days without a brimming cabinet, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government finally attained its full cabinet on Thursday.
The BJP government who brought down the 15-month-old Kamal Nath led legislature in March, induced 28 new members, including 16 BJP legislators and 12 former Congress legislators. The cabinet includes a dozen loyalists of Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose exit from the Congress in March toppled the Kamal Nath-led regime.
With 28 new ministers including 20 of cabinet rank and eight ministers of state, the Chouhan ministry has attained a strength of 34 now. The Chouhan cabinet still has one vacancy as the ministry's strength, depending on the size of the House, should not exceed 35 as per constitutional norms.
BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia being felicitated by party workers and his supporters on his arrival at State Hangar, at Raj Bhoj airport in Bhopal on Thursday. | ANI
With the rebellion of Jyotiraditya Scindia and 22 of his loyalist, eyes were on the BJP government and all the speculations aimed at the CM's decision of whether he will repay the Scindia camp by giving them the ministerial berth.
From 14 of 22 loyalists, 10 were given cabinet berth while the rest of them will contest by-polls likely to be held in the state soon for the twenty-four assembly seats vacant in the state assembly.
Tumbling between the loyalists and the senior leaders of the Shivraj's existing cabinet, it was hard for the CM to come up with a final list of cabinet. The party had a tough time balancing between the existing senior leaders and the Scindia camp.
Finally, from Jyotiraditya Scindia camp, Bisahulal Singh, Aidal Singh Kansana, Imarti Devi, Prabhuram Choudhary, Mahendra Singh Sisodia,Pyadyumna Singh Tomar, Hardeep Singh Dang, Rajwardhan Singh Dattigaon were inducted as cabinet ministers, while Brajendra Singh Yadav, Girraj Dandotia, Suresh Dhakad and Arvind Bhadoria, who played an active role in the rebellion, were sworn in as ministers of state.
Former BJP ministers including Gopal Bhargava, Vijay Shah, Jagdish Devda, Yashodhara Raje Scindia, Bhupendra Singh, Brajendra Pratap Singh and Vishwas Sarang were among those inducted in Thursday's expansion.
From BJP, Prem Singh Patel, Om Prakash Saklecha, Usha Thakur, Arvind Bhadoria and Mohan Yadav were inducted as cabinet ministers, while Bharat Singh Kushwaha, Inder Singh Parmar, Ramkhelavan Patel and Ram Kishore Kavre took oath as minister of state.
This is the second expansion of the Chouhan cabinet. A ;mini; expansion happened on April 21, where five ministers, including two former Congress MLAs and staunch supporters of Scindia -- Tulsi Silawat and Govind Singh Rajput -- were inducted.
